![]() ![]() ![]() “I just looked out my window, and wrote what I saw,” he said. “Small Town,” a magnificent celebration of communal bonds of solidarity and empathy with an alt-country meets rock ‘n’ roll rhythm, is such an act of musical observation, but so is “Ghost Towns Along the Highway,” a 2007 lament of funereal rock for villages like the one of Mellencamp’s origin - Seymour, Indiana - that were once prosperous but now hang over the edge of oblivion. Mellencamp once attributed his uncanny ability to capture the reality of America’s triumphant and tragic struggle to achieve the beauty of democratic and egalitarian promise in the midst of painful, even fatal failures to simply looking out his window. I got into a bad one with another guy from Man-O-War. When my own amusement prompted him to elaborate, he said, “Oh yeah - one of the guys from the Cars. “I have this studio, because I used to get into fights with other musicians when we worked out of the big studios in New York or LA,” John Mellencamp told me with a sardonic laugh. Then, with the correct navigation, you will find an unassuming, small green house where one of America’s greatest songwriters has created a life’s work of music - music to accompany the search for an American soul - since 1983. You will see a lawnmower repair shop with Coca-Cola machines propped against the wall near the front door. Just one hundred yards of dirt, grass and gravel separate speaking in tongues from the “Barn Dance” - a massive red edifice where country music blasts through the speakers every weekend, and the locals scuff the floors and wear down the heels of their cowboy boots. You will pass miniature white churches, including one that proudly advertises itself as a home for Pentecostals. The cell phone will have no signal, and the road will be too narrow to accommodate two automobiles. You and your vehicle will fall on the mercy of the wilderness. Tickets will NOT be available at the box office.If you take the exit for the right rural route in Indiana, you will drive through hills of lush green on narrow backwoods roads. All tickets for the Jshow at DeVos Performance Hall must be purchased online through AXS. Please note the official platform for John Mellencamp is AXS. Tickets may be purchased on-line at AXS.com. Prices may fluctuate based on supply and demand. Ticket prices may vary, as market pricing applies to all tickets. For current ticket prices, visit AXS.com. *Note the box office will not sell tickets for this show, all tickets must be purchased through AXS.com. Mellencamp is a member of the Rock and Roll and Songwriters Halls of Fame, a recipient of the John Steinbeck Award, ASCAP Foundation’s Champion Award, The Woody Guthrie Award, the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and most recently, the Founders Award, the top honor assigned by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. The box set will include two CDs of newly remixed and remastered songs plus previously unreleased bonus tracks and alternate versions, a booklet full of rare photographs and all new liner notes by acclaimed author and music critic Anthony DeCurtis. Museum goers can expect to see artifacts including the suit worn in promotional photos for Mellencamp’s 2003 album Trouble No More, his 1976 Fender Telecaster Custom guitar played onstage extensively and the studio tracking chart for “Jack and Diane” from 1981, as well as an oil painting by Mellencamp himself, Backbone (2022), reworked from a 1993 self-portrait.Ī reissue of Mellencamp’s beloved eighth studio album, Scarecrow, is set for release November 4 on Mercury/UME. Legends of Rock: John Mellencamp opened September 29th at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-a new, permanent part of the museum’s beloved and expanding Legends of Rock exhibit. John Mellencamp brings his Live and in Person tour to DeVos Performance Hall on Jat 8:00PM. ![]()
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